


in pearls

by tnevmucric



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Metaverse (Persona 5), Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, M/M, Pining, ren talks to animals and plants and goro is gay for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25838977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: the water reflected ren’s smile, and goro was jealous of the water.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 81





	in pearls

Haru’s hand is a light pressure on his shoulder. “This is Ren”, she introduces. “He’s been helping me out with the garden, we graduated together last summer.”

“You’re a horticulturist then?”, Goro asks, and Ren laughs, dusting off his thighs as he stands.

“Botanist. The science can be fun.” He tilts his head, his smile a little more coy. “I don’t suppose you garden a lot.”

“What’s the opposite of a green thumb?”, Goro questions, and Ren laughs again.

* * *

Two hours after their first meeting, Ren Amamyia had said; “You’re probably it for me.”

Goro thinks about that moment a lot.

* * *

Ann paints each of her nails a different colour and visits Goro with a kiss to his cheek and a new makeup look every time. She sews sequins onto her skirt reverently, Goro holding her pins within reach.

“Of course!”, she exclaims, snapping a piece of thread and moving to grab a different colour. “We went shopping on Sunday, it’s when I bought you that scarf.”

Goro digs his chin into the glittery silk.

* * *

Yusuke paints monochromatically one day when it’s Goro’s turn to take him lunch. And even then it is as beautiful as the most bright sky.

“We went on a fishing trip just last spring”, Yusuke hums, smearing paint on his sleeve as he contemplates the lighting. “The crabs do sing such lovely songs.”

* * *

Him and Ryuji take turns holding the boxing bag for each other, sharing a protein shake from the vending machine down the hall and sharing a pair of headphones, too. They’ll part ways in an hour and a half, bumping shoulders as they go seperate ways, and tomorrow they’ll tackle the ellipticals.

“He’s a cool guy, gave me some gym recommendations when I was outta pocket”, Ryuji calls from the shower over. “But I totally saw him talkin’ to a cat. And not, like, baby-talk. He mentioned taxes.”

* * *

Makoto is trying to get better at cooking, unsuccessfully. So it’s easier when it’s the both of them fucking up together, learning how to hard-boil eggs and somehow, accidentally exploding them in the process.

“Sis helped him with some paperwork when he first moved here”, she’s saying, hunched over a pot of water. “I don’t know too much. Haru talks about him a lot, though.” She slowly lifts the poached egg out of the water, and for a moment they stare in awe as it sits in the scoop of the wooden spoon.

It breaks.

* * *

Futaba’s learning to ride a bicycle, a hard feat in the clustered alleys of Yongen but not an impossible one. Sojiro watches proudly from the steel table outside of Leblanc as Futaba wobbles past the bathhouse, Goro holding onto the back of the seat and pushing her most of the way. Sometimes he’ll take her all the way to Inokashira with her balancing on the front, and other days it’ll just be to the grocery store.

“Ren?”, Futaba says when he asks. She’s winding extra knee-pads over her original pair. “Yeah, he lived at Leblanc for a while. Don’t you remember?”

* * *

Goro finds Ren nodding very seriously at a thin-legged spider settled in a tulip cup. And Goro pauses. He should keep walking by.

“Sure”, Ren says, “but I think that only works if you’re a spider.”

And then: “For the last time, it’s not a deformity that we only have two eyes. I see just fine.”

* * *

Haru’s eyes crinkle with a smile, her lips covered in a rosy gloss.

“I’m not sure what you mean. He works upstairs on Tuesday’s if you’d like to ask him.”

* * *

There’s lavender outside, waiting to greet you good morning. Your mail is jittering in its box, as anxious about you as you are of it.

(If there’s holes in the paper, it’s just the snails trying to help out on the bills.)

* * *

Ren is painting pinecones with gold and silver paint on the roof of Haru’s cafe. The ivy is a brilliant green, and the flowers from a cluster of snow peas call to attention.

“I’ll let you take _one_ ”, he’s promising a magpie. “What do you think the weather’s going to be like this afternoon?”

“Rain”, Goro says. Ren jumps, smearing gold paint down his wrist, but he grins delightedly.

“Good thing I wore gum boots. Are you gonna come sit with me?”

Goro does sit with him, and Goro does end up with paint stains on his suit. The magpie lets out a gurgled noise and Ren huffs a laugh through his nose.

“What?”, Goro asks. Ren just smiles down at his silvery fingers and puts another pinecone down to dry. 

“You look nice today.”

When he gets home, wringing out his coat and setting his shoes by the heater, he catches his reflection in the mirror by his bookcase.

There’s gold in his hair.

* * *

He visits Ren again, the following Tuesday.

* * *

He runs into Ren at the produce market.

(Rather, he caught a flash of Ren’s red jacket and abandoned his lunch break to casually intercept him by the pyramid of pears.)

He holds Ren’s basket for him, listens and listens as Ren talks and gesticulates and almost takes out an older woman trying to walk by. The basket is filled with bags of birdseed and jars of organic honey.

* * *

“You’re not usually so...”, Futaba waves her spoon around. “Lame.”

“He is in love”, Yusuke nods solemnly, rearranging the asparagus and rice on his plate to look like a snowy forest. “As his friends, there is a longer length of time where we must put up with his attitude. For the sake of longevity and romance.”

“It can’t be more than a month, he’s seriously fucking with my groove. I have to find someone else to teach me sick bike tricks.”

“I have a cold”, Goro protests. There’s whirls of red on his cheeks, and his soup has been abandoned pitifully.

“Because you offered to help Ren wade through the lake to look for his earring”, Ann points out, eyebrows raised into her hairline. “In the rain.”

Goro lets out a vague sniff noise and buries back against her side, digging his cold toes under Futaba’s thigh to make her yelp.

* * *

Ren’s laugh is high, nervous. 

“It’s not much”, he says, opening the door, “but, y’know. It’s home.”

The couch is the colour of a cornflower. His curtains are willowy and sad, his walls following the natural contrast of the sun and sea—a pale yellow.

His kitchen is green. Just green.

Ren shuffles on his feet, nervous and pink.

“It’s...”, Goro licks his lips quickly. “It’s really pretty.”

Ren beams.

* * *

There are bells around the sun, and when you get lost just remember to follow the tinny sounds home.

* * *

Ren fills his margins with scribbles and twisty tornadoes, flowers and sharp stars that dug into the next few pages of his notebook. Goro liked watching him do these most, invited to lay on Ren’s bed as he made remarks on things like the climate change and ammonium nitrate effectivity on ferns.

“They like it too much”, Ren informs him sagely, in his kitten-covered pyjamas. “You should only give it to them as a treat.”

The pastries Goro brought over for breakfast have left flakes on the duvet and icing on the corner of Ren’s mouth. He keeps his eyes down and asks about the paragraph titled Reminders for Reindeers.

(“The ugly ground gets a facelift every few meters”, Ren reads, “so stop complaining about the mud.”)

* * *

Ryuji flips him onto his back, and Makoto tuts from the sidelines.

“You’re not falling correctly”, she comments, “Are you even paying attention?”

“Do you think Ren would be offended if I bought him plant seeds?”, Goro questions at the ceiling. 

There’s a pause, and then Ryuji is staring down at him dubiously.

“Dude, it’s just plants.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate the sentiment”, Makoto interrupts.

“Maybe a worm farm”, Goro continues absently. He starts to see spots. Ryuji splutters.

“A _worm farm?_ The last time you saw a worm you cried and asked me to move it.” Goro meets his gaze with narrowed eyes.

“It was in the pathway.”

“You are literally 6 feet tall”, Ryuji accentuates. “A worm is two inches, tops.”

“Actually”, Makoto begins, “I think I read something about this giant sea worm that was found off the coast of Australia—apparently its the longest creature alive.”

“What the _fuck_.”

* * *

“The moon’s just looking out for you when she follows you home”, Ren says matter-of-factly, peering up at the sky as they wander through Kichijōji. “Nobody really gets that.”

Goro loves him.

* * *

The sand feels like sugar between their toes and the sky is a gradient of pink and indigo. The arriving stars are birds in the sky with candles on their backs coaxing the moon out to play and the sea is cool from the icecaps miles away.

The deck creaked under their feet, and the water spoke songs against its legs. When they sat down, Ren wriggled his toes towards the water, leaning into the cool breeze. Goro could spot the dimples in his cheeks. He looked down.

The water reflected Ren’s smile, and Goro was jealous of the water.

Ren laughed suddenly and bumped their shoulders, shy as he pulled away. “Stop looking at me like that”

“Like what?”, Goro asked softly, and Ren smiled wider. There was a rosiness across his nose that might have just been sunburn. He goes to answer but stops halfway, mouth twisting into a wider smile and head shaking. He leans against Goro’s arm and they watch the rest of the sunset.

“Was this a date?”, Ren asks as Goro’s driving them back into Tokyo. It’s just past 6, and the clouds are racing to hide the rising moon.

With some hesitance, Goro replied: “Well, yes.”

So Goro walks him to his door, because that’s what a gentleman does. And Ren kisses him goodnight, because Goro would never have the courage to do something like that.

(And Ren kisses him senseless. The world could be tumbling, crumbling, shining, glistening, and all Goro would think was: Ren’s nose, Ren’s lips, Ren’s eyelashes, Ren’s cheeks.)

The wind-chimes from Ren’s balcony resonate out into the hall, and Ren’s fingers curl at the nape of Goro’s neck. For a moment they stand there, breathing against each other, a smile twitching on Ren’s mouth as he rubs their noses, his eyes still closed.

(Goro, Goro doesn’t want to stop looking. Goro doesn’t even want to blink.)

“I have to go feed them.”

Goro blinks.

“What?” 

Ren opens his eyes.

“My wind-chimes”, he clarifies. “We got home later than I thought we’d be.” His smile is teasing. “You’re not a very good date. I’m late home, I’ve been out in the cold for hours, you didn’t even tell me we were—“

“I’ll take you on another one”, Goro promises, holding Ren’s hand against his chest. “Anywhere you want to go.”

* * *

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and Goro climbs the stairs to Haru’s roof. Ren is standing with his back to him,spraying the daffodil leaves and humming something soft.

“Too busy for a visit?”, he asks.

Ren smiles, sunshine sweet, his hand lifting to shade his eyes.

“The flowers like you a whole lot”, he says. “I don’t think they’ll mind.”

Goro has no reason to believe otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!
> 
> — tnevmucric.carrd.co


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